Effect of Active and Passive Participation with Music on the Foreign Language Acquisition and Emotional State of University Music Students

The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of singing paired with signing on second language acquisition of university music students under active and passive learning conditions. In addition, emotional states of the subjects were tested. The independent variables were measured by the immediate recall of pronunciation and vocabulary of Japanese songs and emotional states reported by the subjects. All subjects (N=40) were native English speakers studying music at a university, having no experience in learning Japanese. The experiment took place in a music practice room in a 40-minute session and included two trials and posttests. Subjects were divided into two groups, active and passive learning groups. In each trial, a student in the active group (N=20) sang and signed along with the experimenter while the other students in the passive group(N=20) watched and listened. After each trial, the immediate language memory and emotional states were measured. A two-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) with repeated measures showed that there were significant differences in language learning between the active and passive learning conditions and across the two-posttest times with active learners' gaining significantly greater vocabulary and pronunciation skills. Also, there was a significant gain in the comfort level of both groups across both posttests with the active group being significantly more comfortable than the passive group on both tests.The result indicates that active learning with singing paired with signing, compared to simply watching and listening, is more effective for college music students in second language acquisition. The effects of a variety of music structures with different populations and the effects of active and passive learning and interaction need to be examined in future studies.